What do you do when you have employees who just can’t seem to get their quality of work up to your standard? You find yourself constantly having to recheck their work, and often end up simply redoing it yourself – because it’s just easier that way. (Do you really have the time to do your job and someone else’s as well?)

It’s a particularly challenging conundrum with people who are otherwise terrific employees. They’re cheerful, motivated, bright – but just aren’t bringing the attention to detail you’re looking for.

The first place you need to look is, as always, in the mirror. If you’re confident that you’ve clearly communicated the importance of quality with each of your employees, and that you’ve given them ample direction, tools and time to get things done right, then you may be falling into one of these other two very common leadership traps:

#1 No Clear Standards
A lot of times employees continue to do substandard work because that’s the level at which they’ve always worked. They’re oblivious to the fact that others around them are performing better than they, and there have never been any hard discussions or consequences to their performance, so they don’t see a real need to change. If this is the case, the fix is for you to be a lot more direct and specific about your expectations – and to attach real consequences for not meeting them.

#2. You’ve Got Them In The Wrong Job
It’s quite possible that your employee is doing the very best he (she) is capable of, and that the level of performance that you are expecting is simply beyond his competency. In short, you have a round peg in a square hole.

When this happens, you have two options. The first is to provide training or coaching to help develop that competency. The second, and often the best solution, is to find a job that this individual might be better suited for.

Whichever course of action that you take, it is important that you do something. It won’t get better on its own.